From land mines to cancer, animals' incredible sense of smell is saving lives

In Tanzania, they use giant pouched rats to smell for TB and landmines. In Britain, they're researching why dogs are able to sniff out some sorts of cancer. Emma Young reports on how mammals' olfactory gifts are being harnessed

Emma Young 

Thursday 18 February 2016

In a small, hot room within a compound in Tanzania's southern highlands are three white-clad technicians, a glass-and-metal chamber and a rat named Charles. After being gently dropped into the chamber, Charles aims his snout at the first of a series of 10 sliding metal plates in the base. A technician swiftly opens it, revealing a small hole. Charles sniffs… and moves on. The hole is closed, and the next one opened. This time, he sniffs hard, scratching at the metal. The technician calls out: "Two!" Over by the window, a colleague holding a chart inserts a tick. It's highly possible that Charles has just saved someone's life.

Charles is an African giant pouched rat, a species endemic to sub-Saharan Africa. He's also a pioneer, one of 30 of his species that live and work in Morogoro, a few hundred miles west of Tanzania's largest city, Dar es Salaam, on a programme to sniff out tuberculosis (TB).

TB is a disease that can destroy the lungs. About nine million new cases are diagnosed worldwide every year, one-quarter of them in Africa. Antibiotics can cure TB, but it's fatal if untreated, and many patients are never diagnosed. This is partly because the 125-year-old microscope-based test used across Tanzania (and in many other cash-strapped countries) picks up only about 60 per cent of cases, a figure that drops as low as 20 per cent for people also infected with HIV.

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Conservationists Release Critically Endangered Crocodiles in Colombia – Herp Digest

 ·        20 Orinoco crocodiles reintroduced to El Tuparro Natural National Park

·        Scientists will monitor crocodiles via radio transmitters

IMAGES: Orinoco crocodiles. Credits for all images: Mauricio “Pato” Salcedo.

WCS Newsroom

New York (February 12, 2016)—The Critically Endangered Orinoco crocodile recently received a helping hand from conservationists working in Colombia, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Twenty Orinoco crocodiles (Crocodylus intermedius) were reintroduced into their natural environment on Tuesday, February 2nd in El Tuparro Natural National Park, a site where an additional 21 crocodiles were released back in May 2015.

The recently released group of crocodiles included twelve females and eight males, ranging between 33 and 43 inches long. Just as the previous group, these reptiles will be carrying radio transmitters to track their movements and monitor their adaptation to their natural environment.

The name given to the selected area was “Crocodile Lagoon.” Located on the right bank of the Tomo River, this location has the essential socio-environmental and logistical properties for the survival of this species.

A biological survey previously conducted in the area confirmed the presence of large predators and abundant wildlife, both of which are indicators of a healthy environment. Some of the species detected included jaguars, pumas, river otters, tapirs and curassows, among others. Additionally, the site has a generous offering of fish, the main food of the Orinoco crocodile.

Another advantage of the “Crocodile Lagoon” is its proximity to Marandúa, an Air Force base located on the opposite bank of the Tomo River, which will not only guarantee the safety of the area, but will also be essential in providing the researchers access to the area for the continued monitoring of the reintroduced crocodiles.

In the case of the Orinoco crocodile, the Fundación Palmarito is one of the ten partner organizations of the PVS, and it has been working to save this reptile since 2011 in partnership with the Casanare Government, Corporinoquia, Parques Nacionales Naturales de Colombia and Grupo GHL.

This initiative stems from the National Program for the Conservation of the Orinoco Crocodile, created in 1998 by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, along with other organizations.

The intense commercial hunting to which the Orinoco Crocodile was subjected during the second quarter of the previous century—primarily for the sale of its skin—, brought it to its current critically endangered status.

Growing up to 17 feet in length, the Orinoco crocodile is one of the largest crocodilian species in the world. It lives exclusively in the lowlands of the Orinoco basin that straddles both Colombia and Venezuela, and reproduces once a year. Conservationists say that the crocodile’s conservation will ensure the protection of other species, promote the health of rivers and estuaries, and provide a greater opportunity to attract ecotourism.

This reintroduction is part of the Proyecto Vida Silvestre, a program launched in 2014 to protect 10 wildlife species in the Llanos Orientales and Magdalena Medio regions. Proyecto Vida Silvestre is led by WCS Colombia and supported by Ecopetrol and the Fundación Mario Santo Domingo. The project works with ten organizations, one for each species.

Stick insect's propulsion joint discovered

February 16, 2016

The stick insect is a popular model organism in biological research for gaining a better understanding of insect walking movements. The advantage of the stick insect is that the structure of its body parts and nervous system are comparatively simple. For decades, textbooks have claimed that the force for maintaining body posture and driving movement was controlled independently by different joints. Now, as biologist Chris Dallmann reports, "this is not correct." The doctoral researcher at the Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) at Bielefeld University explains that "actually, one and the same joint is responsible for both functions, and we can show this with our new analyses." Dallmann presented these findings together with Professors Dr. Volker Dürr and Dr. Josef Schmitz in Proceedings of the Royal Society, a prestigious biological research journal.

"We wanted to find out how a stick insect moves, and which functions the individual parts of the leg play in its movement," explains Professor Dr. Josef Schmitz, who together with Professor Dr. Volker Dürr is supervising Chris Dallmann's doctoral dissertation. "Amazingly enough, the force for propulsion and maintaining body posture comes from the same joint. This joint serves as a power unit and generates the largest amount of force in the leg. The other leg joints serve, in a way, as steering units, which redirect the power such that the insect can both hold itself up above the ground and propel itself forward," says Dallmann. "A similar principle operates, for instance, in insect flight, where big power muscles provide the main force that is then redirected by smaller steering muscles for lift and drag. This principle of functional division apparently stood the test of evolution."

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Conservation hopes up for the endangered banana frog restricted to Southwest Ethiopia

Date: February 18, 2016

Source: Pensoft Publishers

As the natural forest cover in Ethiopia is already less than 3% of what it once has been, the banana frog species, dwelling exclusively in the remnants of the country's southwestern forests in only two populations, is exposed to a great risk of extinction.

Through their survey, a research team, led by Matthias De Beenhouwer, Biodiversity Inventory for Nature Conservation (BINCO), Belgium, have now extended the species' range, thus making the first steps to saving the charming frogs. The study is published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Although Ethiopia is known for its high number of both animal and plant species that do not live anywhere else in the world, there is a concerning lack of conservation activities to preserve the local biodiversity. Moreover, while as much as 41% of the amphibians ever recorded in the country are exclusive for its fauna, there have been only few researches. Without such, pointing the hotspots in greatest need of protection and restoration, as well as taking adequate measures subsequently, is impossible.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160218114755.htm

Disease, warming oceans, rock lobster and sea star populations

Date: February 16, 2016

Source: Cornell University

Two new Cornell University studies show how diverse marine organisms are susceptible to diseases made worse by warming oceans.

The first study warns that warm sea temperatures in 2015 may increase the levels of epizootic shell disease in American lobster in the northern Gulf of Maine in 2016. The second provides the first evidence linking warmer ocean temperatures with a West Coast epidemic of sea star wasting disease that has infected more than 20 species and devastated populations since 2013. Both were published Feb. 15 as part of a marine disease-themed special issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

The first paper, "Improving marine disease surveillance through sea temperature monitoring, outlooks and projections," summarizes the cases where there are known links between disease outbreaks and temperature, including diseases that affect corals, turtles, lobsters, bivalves, starfish and eelgrasses. The paper proposes best practices to develop models that link disease risk with temperature. Increased disease threatens a diverse range of marine populations, including economically important species like the Maine lobster which could put at risk the New England fishing industry.

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